


Chains of Gold

by oliviacirce



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Torture Through Poetry, Enemies to Still Enemies, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Outsider, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religion, Seduction, Unreliable Narrator, Voyeurism, dubious theology, lying liars who lie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviacirce/pseuds/oliviacirce
Summary: "Don't worry," said Alec Guthrie comfortably. "Don't worry. Of all men Graham Malett knows how to exercise patience and tact." —The Disorderly Knights, III, V
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny/Graham Reid Malett
Comments: 27
Kudos: 54
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Chains of Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



> My recipient's letter was full of amazing prompts, but the thing that stuck with me most was: "What if Gabriel made his metaphorical seduction of Lymond in _The Disorderly Knights_ a bit more literal?" Here's one way that might have happened. 
> 
> Thanks to mistresscurvy, harriet_vane, the rest of my Dunnett book club, and especially my bff K from grad school for being like, "you need Augustine, duh," when I was like, "but HOW does this EVIL MONK seduce this other dude in this book you haven't even read??" On a related note, I am delighted to have had this opportunity to put my several semi-useless degrees to work, not least because I devoured the Lymond Chronicles the summer after I quit grad school, and they sort of saved my life a little bit. Thanks, Dorothy. <3

_St. Mary's, Winter 1551/2_

All through that long winter, St. Mary's, in the person of Francis Crawford, was under siege. While the men trained and sparred and quarreled, argued and prayed, and met in secret corners whenever Graham Malett was in residence, Lymond remained implacably unmoved—to all outward appearances—by the battle for his immortal soul. 

To Jerott Blyth, consumed with the hard, brutal, exhilarating work of fashioning the single greatest mercenary force the world had ever seen, it was uncomfortably easy to forget his larger mission, especially when Gabriel was not there to remind him. When Jerott remembered, and when he had the energy to do more than roll straight into bed after days of back-breaking labour, he missed Gabriel's patience and warmth and the steady, comforting weight of his hand on his shoulder, all virtues that were noticeably absent in Lymond. 

So, returning triumphant and exhausted from a two-day training exercise turned winter rescue mission, Jerott received with both pleasure and uneasy guilt the intelligence that Gabriel had returned. "He came in not half an hour ago," said Lancelot Plummer, as Jerott removed his wet cloak and hung it out to dry before the fire, "and went up to see Lymond with nary a word to the rest of us." 

"He looked tired," put in Hercules Tait, "but the Lord knows he won't get a rest here, if Francis Crawford has anything to say about it." 

"You sound like a bunch of gossiping old women," Jerott said tartly, and took the stairs up to Lymond's office two at a time. 

The door to Lymond's office was ajar, but something stopped Jerott in the hall before he pushed it open. He hadn't been worried about interrupting; he had felt, in fact, rather as though he ought to protect Gabriel from Lymond's caustic tongue. But from where he stood, just outside the half-open door and invisible to the two men in the room, the candlelight caught and glimmered on Graham Malett's bowed golden head, as he knelt at Francis Crawford's feet. 

"Good God," came Lymond's cool, mocking voice. "Get up, please. I am not your portable altar." 

Gabriel lifted his head, his blue eyes bright as flames. Jerott caught his breath; he could not see Lymond—only the toes of his boots, and the shadow he cast across the floor. "No?" said Gabriel, looking up at Francis Crawford. "Are you not?" 

"That sounds remarkably like heresy for a Grand Cross of the Noble Order of St. John," said Lymond lightly. 

"And what do you know of heresy?" Gabriel asked, in the voice that could move men and mountains. Jerott, who had been wondering the same thing, bit down on his tongue and edged closer to the door. 

"Enough," said Lymond, "to doubt that your fellow knights would look kindly on this particular display of devotion." 

"Where there is love," said Gabriel, "there is no sin." 

"Oh," said Lymond, as cold as the frost on the windowpane, "are we speaking of _caritas_? My mistake. I thought you were offering me your body." 

"I am," said Gabriel. 

It was only his exquisite training that kept Jerott from making a sound. There was a look like sorrow on Gabriel's handsome face: a patient, stoic grief, awaiting the inevitable rejection. Jerott had seen it before, in Malta and Tripoli, and to see it here, at St. Mary's, before Lymond—undeserving, as ever, of Gabriel's regard—made Jerott want to scream and break down the door. But Gabriel was still looking at Lymond, and Jerott could not move. 

"And through you, the grace of God?" Lymond said. "No, I thank you. I have no wish to make you a martyr in my bed, Sir Graham." 

" _Francis_ —" said Graham Malett urgently, uncoiling from the floor and moving towards Lymond with his hand outstretched. Jerott saw the near-collision of their boots, and then Lymond was stepping smoothly around Gabriel and away. 

" _Noli me tangere_ ," said Lymond, bright and deadly. "Or so said Christ to Mary Magdalene. I've never felt such an affinity with Our Lord Saviour, before. What _would_ my mother say?" 

Gabriel had followed Lymond, even as Lymond put space between them. From where they stood now, three paces apart in the space before Lymond's desk, Jerott could see them both in profile, a study in perfectly-matched contrasts. Lymond: slim and lithe and neatly-dressed, tense as a bowstring; Graham Malett: tall and loose-limbed and broad-shouldered, well-made and masterful in a way not even his shabby clothing and outstretched, placating hands could entirely disguise. Gabriel's face showed every emotion, pain and misery in the set of his mouth, and Jerott felt so ashamed that he had to step back into the deeper shadows of the hall, digging his nails into his palms. How could he have abandoned Gabriel to this—to this _debasement_? It was surely his neglect that had brought Gabriel here, to fight for Francis Crawford's soul alone, in a way Jerott could never have imagined. 

"Do you doubt me?" Gabriel asked quietly. "Francis. Do you doubt my love?" 

"What is there to doubt?" Lymond shot back, lightly derisive. 

Gabriel took a single step towards him. "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." Lymond went very still, and Gabriel went on, in his beautiful, resonant voice, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love." 

The two men in the room looked at one another, and Jerott felt something hot and terrible curling in his belly, much worse than rage or shame. 

Then Lymond said, with all his customary cynicism, "For my love is sweeter than wine? What a relief, then, that we discourage drinking at St. Mary's." 

" _Christ_ , Francis," Gabriel said, throwing up his hands. "Will you not even—" He stopped, dragging a hand through his hair. 

"Will I not?" asked Lymond silkily. 

"Not even on a _Friday_?" demanded Graham Malett, pressed beyond all endurance. 

Lymond made a startled noise, and then began to laugh. The laugh was raw and real, and Jerott, caught in a whirlwind of emotions impossible to pick apart, fury and horror and envy and a desire he could not acknowledge even to himself, moved closer to the door again, just outside the pool of light. 

"Did you have that from Jerott or Joleta?" Lymond was smiling. 

Gabriel folded his arms. "Joleta, if you must know." 

"Little vixen," said Lymond, admiring. "She did threaten me with exposure." His posture relaxed, tension bleeding out of him so fast it was as if it had never been there. "So we return, inevitably, to your sister." 

"She is never far from my thoughts," Gabriel said mildly. "I wish you could be better friends, Francis." 

"I wish," said Lymond, "that you would keep dear Joleta more firmly in hand." 

"She only hopes to win your regard," said Graham Malett, warm with affection. "She's very young." 

" _Jonesce, au vis cler et luisant_ ," said Lymond, and then, with mercurial swiftness turning sharp and serious: "She is too young for me, as I have said." 

"As _I_ have said," Gabriel echoed, as he took one more step towards Lymond, earnest and unthreatening as he closed the space between them, "if it is age and experience you desire, you need look no further." 

The offer was plain: in Gabriel's open hands, in the soft set of his generous mouth, in his brilliant eyes. Jerott, in the hall outside, had forgotten how to breathe. Then Lymond laughed softly, more breath than laugh. "If you insist." 

Gabriel caught Lymond's face in his hands and kissed him. It seemed, to Jerott, not at all like the sort of kiss one would expect from a Knight Hospitiller under a vow of chastity. He swallowed hard; his hands were shaking. Lymond's hands, he noticed with an absent sort of misery, were loose at his sides, not reaching to touch Gabriel at all. That was, in its way, a comfort. 

Gabriel released Lymond. "No?" His voice was like velvet. 

"My love _is_ sweeter than wine," said Lymond dryly. "You will have to forgive me; it's been some time since I did this sober. Is _that_ how the virtues of Christ are imbued in the unwilling convert?" 

"It's a start," said Gabriel, and slid smoothly to his knees. 

It was worse, this time: the candlelight still caught on Graham Malett's golden head, but now it also illumined Lymond's fair skin and the beads of sweat in the hollow of his throat, his long silvery lashes and dazzling hair. They were both too beautiful to look at, and too terrible for Jerott to look away. He watched, as Gabriel loosed Lymond from his belt and trews, baring his pale thighs; watched Gabriel move one hand up Lymond's leg to curl around his hip, and reach the other—Gabriel's broad shoulders blocked his view, which was probably a blessing. Nevertheless, Jerott shifted, half out of his mind with his own desperate arousal, and so he was in just the right place, at last, to see Gabriel take Lymond's cock into his mouth. 

Jerott was harder than he had ever been in his life, and the helpless noise that escaped him was almost inaudible. But Lymond looked up, over Gabriel's bent head to the shadows outside the half-open door, and met Jerott's eyes. He didn't look surprised, but one corner of his mouth curved up before he looked away and left Jerott, with his pounding heart, alone in the dark.

Inside the room, in the circle of flickering light, Francis Crawford seemed as immovable as a marble statue, as untouched and untouchable—except, Jerott realized, unsteady on his own feet, that it was partly an illusion. Lymond was trembling, so faintly that it was almost unnoticeable. Jerott might not have noticed, if he hadn't spent months intensely studying Lymond, trying to understand him. He understood him no better now than he had on Malta, but he felt a strange sort of connection, as Lymond bit his lip hard enough to draw a bright bead of blood to the surface.

Gabriel lifted his head, and Jerott watched as he stroked his hand over Lymond's cock. "Come now, Francis," said Gabriel gently; his voice was low and hoarse, and Jerott shivered. "Will you not give me what I desire?" 

"I doubt I could," said Lymond breathlessly. "Do you have no fear of hell, Chevallier?" 

"None," said Gabriel, smiling serenely up at him. " _I' son fatta da Dio, sua mercé, tale, che la vostra miseria non mi tange_. Like Beatrice, my love has a holy source," and he bent his head again. 

Lymond inhaled sharply and closed his eyes. His hands, still at his sides, curled into fists, and under Gabriel's tender, holy ministrations, he came silently apart. 

Jerott tasted blood in his mouth, and wondered helplessly if Lymond did the same. He could not imagine—but he could do little else. He was unequal to the vision before him, and yet it was impossible not to picture himself in either—both—of their places: at Lymond's mercy, or at Gabriel's. 

"I find it difficult to believe," said Lymond, after a long moment, "that you learned that at Christ's altar." 

In the hall, Jerott bristled. Gabriel laughed and sat back on his heels, wiping his mouth with his thumb. "God is in all things," he said simply. "This embrace may be what I love when I love my God." 

"Well," Lymond said, "it's certainly been an education for Jerott." 

Jerott went cold, and then hot. Gabriel's eyes flicked up to Lymond's, startled. "Jerott?" 

"He's been standing outside the door for some time," said Lymond, with cruel precision, and then, as Gabriel begin to stand, he added with the firm whipcrack of the commander, "stay there, please." 

Gabriel stayed where he was. Lymond met Jerott's eyes over his head and said clearly, "He's gone." Jerott stared back at him, utterly bewildered, and then months of following Lymond's orders caught up with him and he took two steps away from the door and leaned heavily against the wall, making Lymond's lie almost true. He could still hear them. He could still, if he turned just so, see into the room. But Lymond had made no move to close the door, and he had not let Gabriel see that Jerott was still there. 

_Why?_ It made no sense. Jerott could think of no reason for Lymond to spare Gabriel's feelings, or Jerott's. Unless he _wanted_ Jerott to see Gabriel's surrender. Jerott shuddered, and covered his face with his hands. 

"Francis," said Gabriel softly. 

"Careful, Sir Graham," Lymond said. There was a rustle of cloth, as he began setting his clothing to rights. "I am not normally in the business of protecting vows of chastity. You have to admit, it's an awkward fit." 

"Chastity has its throne in the soul," said Gabriel. "I'm not worried about Jerott." 

" _You_ may not be," said Lymond dryly, "but if I am to go down in history as the ravisher of Saint Gabriel, I should like to have some warning." 

Gabriel sighed. "Why must you always—" he began, impulsive, and then stopped and started again, in the unshakeable voice of prayer. "I only want you to understand that there is love for you here, and spiritual unity, and even God if you would allow it; but love most of all. It does not have to be profane. Indeed, it is not. You will find it difficult, I think, to use my faith against me."

There was a silence, and then Francis Crawford said coldly, "I am not looking for love, profane or otherwise." 

"Perhaps not," said Gabriel. "But I will go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth."

Lymond inhaled, harsh and audible, and then said, "If you must. You might try Edinburgh."

Jerott pushed off the wall at last, and stood on shaky legs like a baby deer. The stairs were only a few paces down the hall. He took them slowly, and made it nearly to the floor below before his knees gave out and he sat down, abruptly, on a step. The stone of the steps was coolly forgiving under his raw hands. 

Nothing else was forgiving. He idolized Gabriel, detested Lymond. It was Graham Malett he wanted to serve, the same Graham Malett who had knelt before Lymond and offered him not only his body but his heart. He was furious that Lymond had brought Gabriel so low; he could not say it surprised him, that Francis Crawford would take the body and leave the soul—but it was Gabriel who had offered. Jerott's guilt was like a serpent in his belly, tangled with his desire. He couldn't tell which of them would devour him first. 

To Jerott Blyth—who had joined the Order because Elizabeth had died, and with her his hope of an ordinary life, a safe home and a wife who would save him from his own shameful desires, unnamed and unacknowledged—it was impossible to reconcile what he had seen. _Oh, my God_ , Jerott thought, putting his head down on his knees. _You touched me, and I am set on fire_. It was better not to think of it; better to put it from his mind. There was nothing else to be done.

**Author's Note:**

> Dunnett never cites anything, so for the full Dunnett experience of this fic, please ignore these. However, I have spent many hours with Elspeth Morrison's amazing _Dorothy Dunnett Companion_ , and I like endnotes. 
> 
> 1\. I cheated with the title, which is from Song of Songs 1:10-11, "Murenulas aureas faciemus tibi" in the Latin Vulgate, or "we will make for you small eel-shaped necklaces of gold" (seriously) which gets translated in Wycliffe and the Geneva Bible and the King James as "ornaments" or "borders" of gold. But "chains" (much more ominous) is a fairly valid translation, and since it's what the 1899 Douay-Rheims went with, it at least predates Dunnett, if not Francis. I also went with the KJV for most of the scripture in the story, because it's more recognizable and less thorny than Wycliffe or Tyndale, even if it's about 60 years too late. If Dunnett can be a little anachronistic, so can I.
> 
> 2\. _Caritas_ , what Augustine calls good love, i.e. towards God, vs. concupiscence ( _cupiditas_ ), i.e., misdirected or sinful love, by way of 1 Corinthians 13, which is sort of underwriting the whole fic. In, like, an evil way. Here is a fun Wikipedia page on [Theological Virtues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_virtues).
> 
> 3\. _Noli me tangere_ , "Do not touch me." Supposedly (John 20:17) said by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection, but also made popularly famous in the 16th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt's sonnet "[Whoso list to hunt](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45593/whoso-list-to-hunt-i-know-where-is-an-hind)," which Francis definitely knows because it's quoted in _Checkmate_.
> 
> 4\. "As the apple tree..." etc. Song of Songs. Gabriel would almost certainly quote this in Hebrew, Latin, or Turkish, but hey. This is fiction.
> 
> 5\. _Jonesce, au vis cler et luisant_ , from the original French _Roman de la Rose_ , which Chaucer translates as "Youthe, fulfild of lustinesse," so basically: A lusty allegory of youth. 
> 
> 6\. I'm so sorry, Beatrice. _I' son fatta da Dio, sua mercé, tale, che la vostra miseria non mi tange_ is Dante's _Inferno_ , Canto II, 91-92. Dante asks Beatrice why she has come down from Heaven to send him on his way to Hell (she says, "Love prompted me") and then why she isn't afraid, and she says, "God, in His graciousness, has made me so / that this, your misery, cannot touch me; / I can withstand the fires flaming here." Gabriel is overplaying his hand a little by quoting Dante, frankly, but Francis and Jerott are both pretty distracted. 
> 
> 7\. "This embrace may be what I love when I love my God." Gabriel is paraphrasing Augustine, _Confessions_ X.vi. I used the Henry Chadwick 1991 OUP translation, which is definitely anachronistic, but it's a good translation and I wanted Augustine in English for the story, even though they would have known him in the original. Gabriel is obviously using this for nefarious purposes and taking Augustine out of context, but Augustine is pretty great. Here's the longer passage: "Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God—a light, voice, odor, food, embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God." 
> 
> 8\. "Chastity has its throne in the soul." Misquoting Augustine, _City of God_ I.xvi. Augustine is arguing that virtue (and chastity) can't be lost due to rape or other physical violation—he actually says, pretty remarkably, "while the will remains firm and unshaken, nothing that another person does with the body, or upon the body, is any fault of the person who suffers it" (trans. Marcus Dods). Relatedly, Gabriel is a dick. 
> 
> 9\. "But love most of all." 1 Corinthians 13. 
> 
> 10\. "But I will go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth." Song of Songs. 
> 
> 11\. _You touched me, and I am set on fire_. Augustine, _Confessions_ X.xxvii. Genuinely one of the best passages in all of _Confessions_ , which is saying something. Jerott is going through it, and who else should one turn to in such times? Here's the full Latin sentence, translated into multiple English sentences: "You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours." Augustine gets very sexy about God. Good luck, Jerott.


End file.
